Pastries are a big part of our Arabic cuisine, they vary from sweet to savory in many different fillings. Today however I am sharing a different kind of pastry. We call it the honeycomb, mainly because of the way we arrange the pastry balls in the pan resembling the honeycomb. But also because we drizzle honey on top of the pastries once they come out of the oven and are still warm, this makes them extra moist and yummy and gives them the special taste you won’t have from any other pastry.
For the filling I use cream cheese. Use the kind that comes in squares, it is easier to handle and fill inside the dough.
I garnish the top of these delicious treats with some regular sesame seeds and some black sesame seeds. You can use whatever you have.
Ingredients:
- 4 cups flour
- 6 tablespoons sugar
- 1 egg
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 1 cup yoghurt
- ¼ cup vegetable oil
- 2 teaspoons yeast
- A dash of salt
- ½ - 1 cup water
- Honey (for drizzling on top)
- Regular and black sesame seeds
*To make the dough, whisk together the dry ingredients then mix in the oil and the yoghurt.
*Beat the egg with the vanilla and add to the rest of the ingredients.
*Now gradually add the water, enough to make the dough form into a ball. You want the dough to be soft and not completely dry (unlike pizza dough for example) but on the other hand it must not be sticky so make sure to add the water bit by bit.
*Once your dough is ready, oil the bottom of the bowl and the top of the dough ball and cover. Leave it to rest and rise for two hours.
* After two hours, you want to form small balls with the dough, place them on a lightly oiled tray. (check video)
*Cut the squared cream cheese pieces into 4 each.
*Now we take each dough ball and fill it with a quarter piece of the cream cheese, close and arrange them in a previously oiled round oven tray. Leave spaces for the dough to rise and attach to each other forming the honeycomb.
*When you finish the hole tray, brush some milk or melted butter on each one and sprinkle the sesame seeds. You can use regular, black, both or if you don’t want any just leave it without. Set aside to rise.
*Bake in a 180 oven until cooked and golden. Take out of the oven and drizzle the honey while still hot giving it the chance to fully absorb it and become super yummy. If you add the honey when the pastries are colder the honey will just stay on top and will not get absorbed into the dough as we would like.
*Enjoy these amazing bites, they are delicious!
